1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to economical, lightweight, recyclable and rapidly set up chairs suitable for stadium and other event seating, and more particularly to collapsible, disposable chairs that can be assembled from a single die-cut, foldable, scored blank of corrugated fiberboard or like generally planar recyclable material.
2. Prior Art
Spectators at stadium sporting events and concerts, horse and auto races, and other large gatherings often desire to have a portable chair that will provide a clean, dry and comfortable place to sit and that thereafter will collapse for compact storage for use again later or for disposal after one or more uses. To achieve light weight and low cost so as to be sufficiently inexpensive to be disposable, and preferably in a manner in which its materials can be recycled, such chairs have been assembled from foldable blanks of sheet material such as cardboard or other fiberboard and the like. Exemplary of the art in this field are the following patents: Klein U.S. Pat. No. 4,085,970; Geneve et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,556,253; Calco U.S. Pat. No. 4,648,658; Volpe U.S. Pat. No. 4,811,987; Scalisi U.S. Pat. No. 4,713,774; Scalisi et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,984,848; Smith U.S. Pat. No. 5,860,704; Ribot U.S. Pat. No. 5,580,131; and Howard et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,795,027. By printing advertising on such chairs and providing an event chair to each attendee who requests one, stadium proprietors or event sponsors can acquire advertising revenue and at the same time obviate the need for event attendees to bring their own event chairs; see, for instance, Scalisi et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,813,744 at col. 14. A significant portion of the cost of providing event chairs has been the time and labor involved in preparing the chairs for use, as the foldable blanks of the prior art event chairs have been less than ideal in that regard.